Teaching Social Media for Social

Good Dr. John Lannon

Dr. Sheila Killian

Dr. Liam Murray

Presentation Structure

• Background to a pilot module

• Module rationale & structure

• What was taught and what was

learned

Broadening the Curriculum Initiative

Graduate Attributes

Why Social Media for Social Good?

• Students’ interest in engaging with

social media

• Social good – institutional mission

• Personal motivations of faculty

Features of module

• 12 weeks – 3 phases

• 4 lecturers & a practitioner

• Mix of young undergraduates

• Discovery-based learning

• Links to local charities / community

initiatives

Student Motivation

What we thought we were teaching

• Social Media

• Context (of social media usage)

• Working with and for charities

• Social media strategy

• Social Responsibility

• Technological skills

• Group Work

• Communication

• Collaboration

• Creative teams

What Students said they Learned

Learning by Gender

Learning by impact motivation

Learning by fun motivation

Learning by business motivation

Learning by social motivation

Confusion… • “to be honest, I didn’t know what to

expect”

• “beforehand, I was quite nervous about the

presentation, and was unsure of how it

would run”

• “We were a bit all over the place for a

while”

Satisfaction… • “At the story fair, it was nice to see the work

the other teams had carried out, and to also

learn more about their charities. It was a

competition, and unfortunately we didn’t

take home first prize. However, I am very

happy with the work that we did.”

• “We also improved out communication,

presentation and creative skills, so for that

reason I thought it was a great success.”

Resilience… • “after meeting the charity we encountered a

few problems. J. .. didn‘t like most of our ideas

which made it hard on us because of all the

work we put in to coming up with all these ways to help them raise money and awareness”

• “but we can’t really do anything about it

because it’s J.’s choice so I guess we’ll just have to see how that goes.”

• “for future practice, I have to remember not to

work myself up so much”

Collaboration… • “things were getting lost in translation”

• “Group meeting before Easter went well.

We all agreed to come up with our own

ideas during Easter and hopefully when we

come back we’ll have a viable option. At

the moment I’m struggling to think of

something good”

Things we learned • Managing expectations

• Some issues of process

• Having “just enough”

confusion in the mix

• Overestimated students’

ease of engagement

with social media

• Unexpected positives

Unexpected outcomes

• Job opportunities

• Resilience

• Self-expression

• Creativity

• Pride